British strikers return, truckers win demands

By JOHN. BRANDON

LONDON—Britain’s biggest postwar industrial conflict ended Jan. 16 and 60,000 strikers returned to work as London ‘truck drivers, after an
11-day showdown fight, won their main demand for an 8-hour day.

Only 15,000 of the strikers were directly involved in the settlement.
dockers, warehousemen and others—struck in protest when the Labor government called out troops to break the strike.

. Britain’s labor government called on troops to break the
recent trucking strike that tied up these food shipments.
Use of soldiers as strikebreakers caused protest walkouts
in many cities and brought threats of a general strike.

The ‘rest—including transport workers in all major cities,

brought about its most serious rift to date with the unions
on which it depends for support.
The decision to end the strike, arrived at by 700 dele-

gates representing the 15,000 striking drivers,

repeateq attempts by the govern-
ment, employers and leaders of
the Transport and General Work-
ers’ Union to pressure strikers
into resuming work before nego-
tiations started. The strikers, how-
ever, wouldn’t budge from their
demand that they be guaranteed
certain concessions going back on
the>-jobs «>=

On January 15 the men voted
overwhelmingly to stay out de-
spite the pleas of the TGWU
leadership, which had never au-
thorized the strike. Apparently
convinced that the strikers
meant what they said, employ-
ers—who had been using the
government action to hide their.
own responsibility—finally con-
ceded the 8-hour day and 44-
hour week with overtime pay.
after eight hours.

Other demands, including an-
nual vacations and paid holidays,
will be arbitrated by a joint in-
dustrial council, named by the
government Jan. 14 in an effort
to settle the dispute. The coun-
cil is composed equally of union
and employer representatives.

The strike was touched off
when a government wage tribun-
al, which had been studying the
drivers’ case for more than nine
months, finally concluded its work
by rejecting all major demands.
These were the reduction of the
work week from 48 to 44 hours

came after

and an 8-hour day with overtime
to be compensated by pay instead
of by the pre-strike system of
comparable time off.

An interesting sidelight — and
one that will probably sound fa-
miliar to every American worker
who has been on a picketline —
was the role of the daily news-
papers, which tried to terrify the
public with the prospect of vir-
tual starvation.

One London housewife report-
ed that, while passing a butcher
shop, she saw the cases being
cleared of meat so that a press
photographer could take a pot
shot of the bare shelves. When
the photographer was finished,
the meat was replaced and the
store was opened for business.

Shipyard union
seeks increase

A 50 percent increase in unem-
ployment insurance grants was
called for at this week’s meeting
of the Marine and Boilermakers’
Local 1 of the Shipyard General
Workers’ Federation (CCL).

The present grant of $12.50 a
week is totally insufficient to cov-
er present day living costs, the
union declared.

food workers,
The government’s action

Parkin goes to
new IWA post

Al Parkin, well known B.C.
newspaper man and radio com-
mentator, has been appointed Di-
rector of education and publicity
by International Woodworkers of
America, District No. 1, it was
announcéd this week. The IWA
is the first union in the province
to have on its permanent staff a
full time director in these fields.

Parkin, who has been a member
and organizer for the IWA in the
past, -was editor of newspapers
published by the loggers, fisher-
men, and aeronautical workers.
When his daily Pacific Tribune
news, “Labor Looks Behind
the Headlines,’ was barred from
the air recently, labor organiza-
tions throughout the = province

campaigned unsuccessfully to have
the program put back on the air.

Emphasis will be placed on edu-
cation in the future, Parkin re-
ports, with a view to setting up
educational committees in locals
and camps, travelling
and film services.

The new union department was
established by action of the IWA
District Convention in January.

UE urges campaign on price
increases, seeks wage raises

TORONTO — Warning Canadians of the disastrous effects which will flow from
the King government’s policy of price decontrol, the Executive Board of the United Elec-
trical, Radio and Machine Workers Union ( CIO), issued a ringing call to union mem-
bers and the public generally to fight price increases.

“Newspaper reports that anoth-
er wave of decontrols will take
place in the spring, when Donald
Gordon is expected to resign, will
be the final blow at the living
standard of the Canadian people,”
the U.E, executive noted.

“The UE-CIO urges that the
strongest public protest of the
government decontrol policy be
made immediately to counter-
act the work of big business
_ pressure groups in Ottawa.”
Describing the proposed in-
crease in rents as “part of the
sellout of the
Canadian peo-
ple that has
been taking
place for the
past. eighteen
months,” the
union state-
ment pointed
out that the
price increases
“ere not ~ the
result of wage
gains made by
labor as govern-
‘ment and corp-
orations have
insisted.”

In a separate statement, the
UE’s wage policy for 1947 was
outlined. Substantial wage in-

Cc. S. JACKSON
Director, U.E.

creases for Canadian workers was |"

ealled for, noting that corpora-
tion profits in Canada were the
highest on record, while the wor-
kers’ wages are being sliced by
inflationary price rises.

“General living standards de-
clined during 1946, while only
1 in 5 workers, or 600,000 out
of 3,000,000, participated in wage
gains, The present profit posi-
tion of Canadian corporations
and their guarantees of contin-
uing high profits in 1947 is ob-
viously more than adequate to
meet the wage needs of their

workers,” the UE _ executive
_ stated,
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 2

f

LONDON

Buck to sitend Empire
parley of Communists

A conference of Communist parties

of the British empire will be held next month following con-
clusion of the 19th annual congress of the British Communist
Party, it was announced here this week. The conference, to

be held in February, is expected
to be followed with close interest
not only in the coloniés ang do-
minions, but in many other parts
of the world. j

(Tim Buck, national leader of
the Labor-Progressive Party, will
attend the conference, LPP head-

quarters in Toronto announced
this week.) 3
The empire parley, according to

Harry Pollitt, leader of the Brit-
ish Communist
Pe pity, | tw Lid
bring fully into
the light of day
the present po-

sition which
exists in the
various terri-

‘tories of the
Empire, clarify-
ing and illum-
inating th:
— problems and
i tasks which
- Tim Buck this involves
for ail Communist parties within
the empire and with which they
are most directly concerned.
“For instance, take the ques-
tion of the struggle for peace,”
Pollitt stated. “Throughout the
British empire reactionary imper-
ialist elements, following Chur-
chill’s lead, are engaged in very
dangerous
ties and anti-Soviet intrigues.
“Again, take the question of

war-provoking activi-.

Britain’s colonial system. Not only
have the wartime pledges regard-
ing the promotion of the real
welfare and development of the
colonial peoples and the recogni-
tion of the right to self-determin-
ation’ and independence remained
a dead letter, in actual fact in-
tensified efforts are being exerted
to perpetuate and strengthen the
colonial regime. The position in
relation to India, Burma, Malaya,
and the African territories serves
to emphasize this.”

The provisional agenda drawn
up for the conference, which will
be in session from Feb. 26 to
March 2, 1947, is as follows: |

1. Communist Parties of the
Empire and the Fight for Peace
and Democracy:

2. The Working Class and
Peasant Movements in the Em-
pire,

3. India.

4. Britain’s Colonial System,

5. Palestine and the Middle
East. . Bees Set

BOMBAY—The princely state of
Travancore in southern India has
given a government - sponsored
British concern the’ right to pro-
cess its thorium. Thorium, like
uranium, is a fissionable material,
good for atomic bombs. The fact
that it has been found in India
won’t make her road to independ-
ence any easier.

Price decontrols set off by Finance Minister Abbott and WPTB
Chairman Donald Gordon has brought an unwelcome ‘guest’ to
every workingman’s family table—the monopoly hog to take the

first helping.

Inflated prices threaten the economic and social

security of every worker, and sie united action will halt the

process.

McArthur censors Murray
message to Japan labor

NEW YORK—A New Year “message rom ICIO. Bree.
Philip Murray to Japanese workers was severely censored
by Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo, a New
York Times survey of news policies in Japan has disclosed.

The first part, printed below

‘as translated back into Englrsh

from Japanese, was partially cen-
sored. The phrases printed in
parentheses were the ones Japa-
nese ,readers were forbidden to
see.

“I am happy to send a message
from the American CIO to Japa-
nese labor. Laborers of the world
have many things in common.
They all (opposed dictatorship in
the black days before the war
and) seek peace, safety and jobs.

“The CIO believes world peace
depends upon the collaboration of
labor all over the world. This
collaboration has been made pos-
sible through the World Federa-
tion of Trade Unions.”

The last paragraph was entire-
ly deleted. It read:

“IT earnestly hope the day will
soon Come when Japanese labor
will send delegates to this fight-
ing organization of democratic

labor unions. There are Ameri-
af

can ClO members in the Ameri-
can occupation labor division.
Others of our members helped
to reform the Japanese educa-.
tional system. These men praise .
the Japanese masses who are

longing for democracy.”
Notable is the fact that every:

mention of democracy was cen-
sored.

AINA

MOSCOW — The Soviet
newspaper, Izvestia, announced

this week that cancer is being:

detected here by the examina-

tion of a single drop of blood, .
The account said the method

perfected by A, P. Pototskaya in

Moscow, utilized a radiation of ~~
ultra-violet waves of extraordin- _

arily weak intensity.

The announcement did not
claim it works in every case, but
said that in tests of 400 persons,
suffering from various

proved positive.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1947-_

libraries.

tions, this “simple, easy’ method